March 10, 2012

So I've been looking for a good way to carry my new iPad (once it arrives on March 16th that is) without wearing a backpack or carrying a bag. I want to be able to ride a bike, walk to a park, hop on a bus, or even see a movie without the extra burden of being tied down to a bag...or worse yet advertising to everyone that I'm carrying an expensive toy.

So I Googled "iPad clothing" - and I discovered the Scottevest Transformer jacket. While I haven't yet pulled the trigger on my Blaze Red XL purchase, it seems to me that this product is in need of some Kickstarter-type marketing love. They are clearly Apple, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs fans (and even have a tongue-in-cheek "Keynote" presentation where their CEO tries his best to channel some Jobsian love) and it seems they are really trying to bring innovation to clothing.

I doubt the words innovation and clothing have rarely been used in the same sentence - but when was the last time you saw jacket sleeves attached by magnets? I know some people like Mark Cuban think Scottevest's patent for TEC or "Technology Enabled Clothing" is a joke - but it got me thinking that while more than 300 million iOS devices have been sold I doubt that the attach rate of devices to clothing is very high. But it seems to me inevitable that clothing and technology will one day fuse.

I realize their CEO, Scott Jordan was recently on Shark Tank in an effort to get funding and/or free marketing (and some folks were really put off by his performance) but I think he's on to something. Pockets on our pants somehow predated the car keys, phones and wallets we have today and I'm pretty sure we're now all out of places to hold our tech comfortably. Perhaps some day we'll see a line of official Apple iClothing on sale in an Apple store.

January 18, 2012

When I worked for Steve to reconstitute the Apple University Consortium in 1997, it was clear then how passionate Steve was for the education market. Not only did he believe (then) that technology could change the way students learn - but he also believed that the Education market could be an important foothold for Apple's business over time. Get students excited about the Mac in college and they become lifelong purchasers and evangelists.

Yet Steve learned an important lesson over time (and his experience trying to sell NeXT exclusively at Higher Education cemented this belief): that technology alone could not change the way students learn. Students - and teachers - needed more than just access to technology to change the world of education.

Apple has quietly been working with publishers and textbook providers to help them see this vision: while Kindle has helped some well-off consumers experience a better way to consume their New York Times Bestseller's fix, it has done nothing to help reduce the burden on average cash-strapped student wallet or back(pack). Apple aims to change this.

While not for everyone, Apple's new iBooks Textbook platform will apply Apple's ease of use to a traditionally murky process: publishing ebooks or textbooks. Naturally Apple's solution will make it simple to publish directly to the iBookstore and is aimed squarely at students' iPads. This becomes something of a virtuous cycle: faculty can easily publish custom books for their classes and require their students to use that book...which requires them to purchase an iPad.

The economic are simple: just a few textbooks can cost a student more than an iPad and are likely to never be used again. And the missing element is finally provided: interactive content that compels students to learn anywhere and everywhere. Apple hopes this revitalizes the textbook industry with the iPad at its center - just as it put the iPod at the center of the rebirth of digital music. Companies like Kno will give up building their own dual-screen tablet and instead focused on building great software with the iPad as their delivery tool.

December 17, 2011

Just learned that this will be broadcast in the US on CNBC Feb 2, 2012. Set your VCRs/DVRs now. Learn more here

Very proud to be part of this brand new BBC Special called "Steve Jobs: Billion Dollar Hippie" on the life and times of the Apple Marketing genius himself. This program is filled with rare details from some of the people who worked closely with Steve and stars Steve Wozniak, John Sculley, Andy Hertzfeld, Steven Levy and more (even me!)

October 21, 2011

After spending the last few weeks thinking about Steve and the impact he had on the world, I've decided to write a more detailed book about my life and Apple. This book will reveal what it was like to work at Apple during the dark days before Steve returned as well as how Apple changed the world under Steve's leadership. You'll learn some secrets about Apple that I've shared in some of my keynote speeches including how I almost died the same year that Apple almost died, why the original iMac was translucent, and how iTunes was an accident.

As an experiment, I will begin by releasing some of chapters on these pages under new posts. My hope is that you will enjoy my writing and give me some feedback and in return I may release some chapters for free as I've done with my short ebook.

October 07, 2011

Steve Jobs' death hit me in a way I wasn't expecting, even though I was expecting Steve Jobs' death.

I'll write much more on these pages soon, but I was inspired to quickly create this tribute video to him: Here is Steve Jobs narrating and starring in his own Think Different commercial. I couldn't wait for Apple to do this so I had to - of course using all Apple tools.

October 04, 2011

So I already knew that Apple wasn't releasing an iPhone 5 today - remember gang, there was no iPhone 2 or iPhone 3 (we went from iPhone to iPhone 3G to denote the new carrier). We also don't have an iMac 3 or an iPod 5, and the numbering scheme for iPhone 4 was really an anomoly.

So don't read too much into Apple product numbers. But I am concerned about three rare product launch slip ups that never would have happened if Steve was minding the store.

The first problem: Apple.com was unreachable for more than an hour today. Ok, the Store is something Apple always takes down before a product launch and then they time the home page to update as soon as Steve (er Tim) is done with his keynote. But here is how Apple.com looked for hours after today's launch:

Apple.com was down? That's huge news by itself. And if that wasn't bad enough, look at what the images of the iPhone 4S looked like on the Apple website after the Apple pages were finally brought online:

Really? Look at those white corners in the images of the iPhones? Anyone who knows web graphics knows you need to make those white corners transparent so the shadow effect is preserved. Here they look like they were hastily posted without someone noticing that problem.

And finally, around an hour before the keynote all the details of the iPhone 4S and the new iPod nano was announced on Apple's Japan website for the world to see. Whoops.

While none of these issues are earth-shattering in their own right (well, Apple.com going down is pretty big) I only hope this isn't the first visible signs that Steve's steady hand is required for Apple to continue to deliver great products - and experiences - that truly surprise and delight.

Come on Tim, your team has done better! (and we're all rooting for you)

P.S. I do take some delight in noticing that all the dates on the iPhone Siri screenshot - May 19 - is my birthday.

August 25, 2011

I have heard from many friends since Steve Jobs' resignation. As we discuss frequently on this blog it is clear that Steve changed the way people relate to technology. Before Steve computers were relegated to the white-coated high priests of the raised-floor, air conditioned labs where mere mortals never dared tread. Steve changed all that - giving us first the "Computer for the Rest of Us" and then eventually changing the way everyone consumes their music, movies, magazines and even the Internet.

Steve will long be equated with the small letter "i" - at once meaning Internet, innovation, inspiration but most importantly individual. He leaves a legacy as our generation's Thomas Edison: both proud, determined inventors who would not rest until they sparked equal technological and cultural revolutions literally empowering people to reach higher and dream bigger.

Some day I will tell the story on this blog about how I got my first job at Apple and how I resigned during Apple's darkest days...only to be invited back by Steve Jobs to help him save the company. That story reminds me of the transformational power of a true leader. A person who with one breath convinced me to take a chance on the future when - on paper - Apple didn't have one. That same leadership and unwavering attention to detail and the belief that people deserved better is what sparked the iMac (which begat the iBook, iPod, iPhone and iPad) and began the love affair we now have with technology - formerly cold, austere and beige and now sleek, reflective and affectionate. In many ways - thanks to Steve - our romance with technology has only just begun.

June 24, 2011

As many of you know, I worked at Apple for about a decade and left to run product marketing for a startup (Bowstreet) at the beginning of the original dot.com bubble. What many of you don't know is that right after Bowstreet I joined Avid Technology to help save them from being put out of business by - you guessed it - Apple.

See in those days Avid was the king of media. It is not an exaggeration to say that EVERY major movie, television program and/or song was touched in some way by Avid's tools. Their brands: Avid Media Composer, Digidesign Pro Tools, and Avid Unity media management were known and loved by real professionals who produce the world's best media every day.

Trouble was, as much as these customer loved the tools, they hated the company for many years of predatory pricing practices and other arrogances. Customers were ready to leave the moment Apple launched Final Cut Pro and Apple went out of its way to attract these customers with the promise of lower prices, better tools and more collegial relationships. One of my many roles at Avid was to rebuild the strained relationships with our customers (this is a good recounting of how we did that - hi Marianna!) But having better discussions with our customers wouldn't save Avid. Not only did we have to double-down on the solutions those professionals needed (by launching Mojo, Adrenaline and Nitris) but we also had to - gulp - outmarket Apple.

And we did! I could write a book on how I helped Avid compete with (and beat) Apple at their own marketing game: launching Avid FreeDV while Steve Jobs was still on the MacWorld stage introducing Final Cut Express; including both Mac and Windows installers in the same box and encouraging pros to install on more than one computer; adding professional color correction tools into Avid Xpress DV v3.5 and launching it at the Final Cut Pro User's Group in Hollywood while getting Steve Jobs to provide a quote in the Avid press release alongside Avid's own CEO. I could go on and on. The moral of this story is that we had to listen more, work harder, innovate faster and deliver the solutions these professionals needed all while beating the marketing drum louder than ever. I'm proud to say that these efforts took Avid from death's doorstep to record growth (the stock climbed from $9/share to $65/share and the company broke through the $1B annual revenue barrier after 14 years of trying) - all by focusing solely on the needs of the professional market it created.

What's amusing and a bit sad about this week's horrific launch of Final Cut Pro X is that Apple is now making the (rare) marketing mistake of telling these professionals what they want instead of giving them what they are asking for - all with the typical Apple marketing silence. Such arrogance works in a consumer market where your average person doesn't really know what they want until they see it (the Henry Ford "faster horse" argument) - but this approach does not work in an enterprise or professional market where people's careers are built - and risked - by delivering results. Pro customers who moved away from Avid bet their own personal brands on Apple - and are rightly concerned when it seems that Apple has turned its back on them for the safety (and possible additional revenue) of the consumer market.

When was the last time we've seen Apple's brand hammered in major print articles with headlines like "debacle" and "troubling"? When was the last time NYTimes columnist David Pogue (who got his start writing for MacWorld magazine) wrote a followup article to defuse the venom generated by his first one? Apple has long leveraged the power of fanatical, cult-like users even with a trivial marketshare. Well, Apple is now witnessing the power of these same vocal users uniting against it - and Apple must listen and react. To do nothing risks the contagion spreading as more videos like this one from the Conan O'Brien Show overflow to the average Joe Consumer:

Steve has been called the Henry Ford and Thomas Edison of our age and he is my personal hero. You can bet he is listening to all the FCPX negativity as he did with MobileMe and Antennagate. He famously said "We want to make all our users happy. If you don’t know that, you don’t know Apple." Well now it is time to see if the world's best marketing machine can live up to its billing and if these professional users will be happy with Apple again soon.

June 15, 2011

UPDATE: 6/17: Even better story today in Forbes (and free) that really dovetails with my free ebook about the Apple Marketing approach to retail stores.

Good (but not free) story today in the Wall Street Journal about how Apple has made its retail presence such a positive success.

Walk into an Apple Store and you'll feel less like you are in a retail outlet (where are the cash registers and checkout counters) and more like you are in a museum. Well before the iPad made touch a natural gesture, and even as most retailers hid their best products behind glass, Apple made their stores a touch-worthy experience. Touch anything, stay as long as you want, ask as many questions as necessary and feel free to borrow our WiFi.

Apparently nothing is left to chance - even the interaction between potential customers and store employees is carefully scripted, not unlike a Steve Jobs' keynote presentation. And it should be this way. What Apple knows (and most other retailers forget) is that a company's lasting (or fleeting) relationship with their customers begins immediately after customers purchase something from you. Apple's careful cultivation of that experience is one of the many magic (and tightly managed) elements of the Apple brand. Apple has to be more than the sum of its employees - it has to become an experience - borrowed from Disney and wielded like Nike - that captivates and motivates normal people to action. And that action - buying something - now more than ever starts in an Apple Store.

So credit Ron Johnson, soon to be former Apple Executive and new JCPenney President and CEO, for making the experience one that drives millions of people to otherwise boring and depressing indoor malls. We can only hope that the Apple Magic will rub off and the other mall anchor store can become as much a draw for Dockers and vacuum cleaners and family portraits as Apple is for irresistable technology.

BTW, did you know that the "C" in "JCPenney" stands for "Cash"? Just the announcement of Ron as a JCPenney employee increased the market value of JCP by $1B. Now that's cash!